The Poetry Marathon

Poem for Hour Two

A Mesostic – For and Not For My Dog Tugboat

“These cracked elbows, the only sign of time passing”
   —Canisia Lubrin from The Dzgraphxst, page 41

              Cracked elbows, the only sign of Time
                          passing Canisa says bUt
                                      not true God said
          to me just now sounding puzzled, the Big bang and its
                          aftermath, all that nOthing turned into somethings,
              for darn near fourteen billion yeArs that’s
                        big, very big, sign of Time passing he told me.

                     What more of Time do I need
               or want to know aboUt with death        
                    always this TuG

                              at my ankles, this Bounded true
                                                nOrth, all of us heading
                                         in the sAme direction
                                                 Time or no time.

                                      To pass the Time, mark
                              time, waste time, plUg
                    the holes in the boat of time Going down
                                   anyway, so why Bother giving
                      time or cracked elbows a secOnd thought. Why not
                imagine a dog, any dog, but especiAlly my dog, Tugboat
                                   bounding along Today untugged, unleashed 
                                                        to time.

*The mesostic form like the acrostic form takes a word and spells it vertically down the page but unlike the acrostic places it to create varied left and right margins.

Richard Osler
Poem for Hour Two
Poetry Half Marathon
June 26th, 2021

Water: A Paradox

Water, a solvent

Inorganic compound,

Falling and flowing.

Water, H₂O,

Earth’s air and liquid mantle,

Falling and flowing.

Water, a blessing,

which also doubles as a curse,

Falling and flowing

Water, a solid,

which also turns less dense as ice,

Not flowing, freezing.

Hour Three

Fifty Years

She stops outside number 82, sees a woman
Similar to the one
She herself remembers being.
Recollects her 21st, over fifty years ago,
And her husband to be, waiting
Until after the pub closed to attend,
Not sharing until years later
That he needed the Dutch courage to even enter the house.

Recollects her 21st, over fifty years ago,
Wonders what happened to that girl
Full of life and hope,
Who dared to love.
But her husband is gone
And she is left alone,
Standing outside a house no longer hers,
Filled only with memories.

The woman who looks like she used to,
Half her age, no wrinkles or worries,
Listens and laughs
In all the right places,
Lets her stop and talk,
And she finally feels seen,
Even though she misses her husband, and
Recollects her 21st, over fifty years ago.

The town has changed a lot,
But she stays here – born and bred,
Likes to tell her story,
Reminisce and remember
She can still hear the music,
Of the days when the dancing
Lasted all night, and they greeted the dawn,
That one night, on her 21st, over fifty years ago.

Hour 3: Saving My Tears

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

My sorrows are full enough,

Overflowing and spreading drearily across my life

Eclipsing my sunrises

Shrouding my stars

 

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

To shrink themselves into less,

Washing away guilt

Cleansing the soul

Stealing meaning from my sadness

 

I’ll not let sorrow have my tears

To comfort the pain,

Keeping the hurt within me

Enduring like a martyr

Baptizing as if divine

 

Rather than drown in swells of sorrow

I’m saving my tears for joy

Whenever it comes.

I’ll let joy burst out with my tears

2021 Here we are ready for more conscious thought and action…

Yes 🙂

 

Therapy (Hour 3)

Therapy 

By: LuvMiFreely

(Hour 3)

I don’t know how to articulate how I feel

So I let my thoughts spill

Across these pages

As I go through phases

Trying to understand my feelings

Emotions

Going through the motions

The highest heights

Cloud nine potion 

Until I realize I have a phobia

And then I’m left falling

Crashing down at a speeding pace

I have to admit that I’m all over the place

Unsettled

Yet unbothered 

Brain racing at full throttle

It makes no sense 

But this is my normal

Scatterbrain

Feeling used and useless

Sane yet insane

Why do I feel this way?

This isn’t my mind on drugs

No illusions 

These delusions aren’t a dream

It’s my reality 

And now you’re probably just as confused as me

Good…

Now maybe we should both go get some therapy

Prompt 3: Our Work Endures

We make our mark

in glass and concrete

Stifle the world with steel

Our work endures

We pave and press

Our stones into the

Fecund earth, heedless

Our work endures

For millennia we toil

Brick upon brick

Shanks sunk deep

Because we know, deep

In our fragile, furious hearts

Nothing endures

Hour Three, Text and Image Prompts Together

I See It All

I see it all
from my vantage point
above,
my perfect portrait
of water, rocks, and cattails,
a bucolic vision nearly unmarred
but for the jarring, fuchsia clad woman
I will later digitally remove.

I see it all
from my vantage point
upward,
my perfect portrait
of arching stones, vines, and tree sketched sky,
a softened man made vision punctuated
by heads and shoulders
of strangers I will ignore.

I see it all
from my vantage point
behind,
my perfect portrait
of amateur photographers
snapping each other unwittingly,
a collective vision for my professional eye,
and I capture them all, and laugh.

I see them all
from my vantage point
outside,
my flawed poem
of people seeing and not seeing,
scene by layered scene,
chronicled by my faulty pen
and laid bare for you.

Hour 3 – I Am Not What Happened To Me

I am not what happened to me. 

I survived the abuse and it 

Forged the reckless kindness in me.

 

I am not what happened to me. 

Harassment and sleepless nights

Turned into art, catharsis. 

 

I am not what happened to me. 

Your addictions will not drag me

Back to the hell I clawed out of. 

 

Maybe I am what happened to me, but

I know better now, I can work on the 

Bad habits that clung to me. The 

Cycle ends with me.

Unfiltered

 

 

 

Poem 3

Unfiltered

 

How much of me is unfiltered?

 

Am I a compilation of people I’ve met

and admired or had issues with?

 

Smart kids in college.

Athletes in high school.

Winners with the girls.

 

Those with ideas I love

but would never have thought of

in a million zillion years.

 

How much of me is unfiltered?

 

The Marlboro man puffing with certainty.

Babe Ruth pointing to the stands.

Ranting politicians.

 

How much of me is unfiltered?

 

Each day dripping newness

as if rain has washed away

what used to be me.

 

Much of me is unfiltered.

 

because all my huge decisions,

the ones that changed the rest of my life

the ones I talk about reverentially now

that may bore those around me who

have heard the story one too many times…

 

were shots of lightning

blasted from the canon

of imagination freed from

the fear of doing something wrong.